Q: EFI partition preventing installation of Windows 7?
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Jan 7, 2016 7:59 PMby Loner T,The answer is a resounding 'NO' to all three questions. You can have a fourth BC/Windows partition.
Let us try the simple fixes first.
1. Boot in Safe Mode - Try safe mode if your Mac doesn't finish starting up - Apple Support - and boot normally and try BCA.
2. Boot into Internet Recovery - OS X: About OS X Recovery - Apple Support - and run Utilities -> Terminal and the following command.
diskutil repairDisk disk0
Please post back if these do not resolve your issue.
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Jan 7, 2016 8:58 PMby snarlybear,No success.
First, I booted into safe mode, then simply rebooted back into normal mode. BCA still returning the same error.
So I used command+option+R to boot into internet recovery, and ran the diskutil function mentioned. No problems. However, after rebooting back into normal mode and again running Boot Camp Assistant, the error still remains.
Are there any other thoughts?
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Jan 8, 2016 9:39 AMby snarlybear,First of all, thank you for helping me with this issue. I am filled with appreciation!
The second request was simple enough:
I am not sure how access the log of diskutil repairDisk. Can you help me with that? For what it's worth, there were no errors listed when I did run repairDisk.
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Jan 8, 2016 3:45 PMby Loner T,Yes, it is definitely a good sign.
There are problems it reveals ...
1. BC Assistant does not how to deal with a single 3TB disk (as opposed to a 3TB Fusion drive, which are two underlying physical disks).
2. Your Windows installation needs to be larger than 1TB to allow a valid MBR to be created, otherwise it will fail.
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Jan 8, 2016 4:08 PMby snarlybear,Excellent!
So what is my next step? Should I create a > 1 TB FAT partition and try to install Windows without Bootcamp?
UPDATE: a quick Google search shows that Boot Camp does not work on a HDD greater than 2.2 TB. There appear to be workarounds--I will pursue those options in the next day or so.
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Jan 8, 2016 4:20 PMby Loner T,There are two specific requirements. The MBR entry must start wishing the first 2TB boundary, and cannot be larger than 2TB. If you create a partition for Windows larger than 1TB, say 1.2TB, it will work on a 3TB disk, but not on a 4TB disk.
You can remove the current partition using BC Assistant and create a new 1.2TB FAT32 partition. You will need to use your Optical drive and a physical DVD to install Windows.
